Parking queues plummeting says council

9:44am Sunday 29th July 2007

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The waiting list for parking permits in central Brighton has been slashed, according to figures released by the council.

A total of 400 permits have been issued in the last two months, cutting the wasting list from 800 to 400.

But it's not all good news for those scouring for a place to park - 250 people have joined the list since then and Brighton and Hove City Council has revealed it will now only being issuing permits when people move out of zones Z or Y.

Almost every parking bay from Seven Dials to the coast has been changed since the beginning of the year as eight parking zones were merged into two larger areas.

The controversial scheme was brought in to create new spaces and cut waiting lists of up to two years.

Concern that bigger zones would lead to people commuting within these areas has yet to prove founded and the chairman of the People's Parking Protest, which has fought the changes, today gave guarded praise to the council.

Steve Percy said: "I have been pleasantly surprised that the scheme at the moment has not caused any great trouble.

"But there is a great demand from people who want to get permits and it must be remembered that residents who have been here for a long time are not going to be pleased if the bays become as busy as they were before the scheme."

The programme has created 635 spaces in the north area Y and 329 in the south area Z, but a council spokeswoman said that 964 new permits would be issued.

She said: "The new parking system is working well for the majority of residents and has proved very successful.

"It has cut waiting times in some areas from a minimum of two years to a minimum three months and has made an extra 400 residents permits available in central areas.

"Obviously there is still a lot of pressure for spaces in the city centre and we are not able to immediately give out permits on demand.

"There may still be a wait for some new residents but thanks to the new system it is vastly shorter than in the past. We thank people for their patience.

"The new scheme tries to strike a balance between offering new permits and bringing the ratio of spaces to permits down to a reasonable level.

"It would defeat the object if we immediately started giving out permits left right and centre, meaning that spaces were once again vastly oversubscribed.

"The current scheme means that we're able to offer hundreds of new permits and at the same time ensure that the people who have them have a reasonable chance of finding somewhere to park."